fourthly, what the fuck cookie? youve never heard of Cigar Aficianado (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigar_Aficionado)? you didnt see my link where i suggested it so people who dont know that its not just some italian douche baggery addition? did you not think it was clever how "cigar" and "gengar" sound similar thus make a humourus pun? do you know how many question marks are acceptable in a paragraph? i dont.

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i find it hilarious that you're surprised that i've never heard of a magazine about cigars of all things, an american one no less. i concede that i could've gone through the submissions in the thread though. doesn't make a jot of difference anyway, i could've just as easily written something more relevant to the original idea, unless that magazine is well-known enough for people to recognise what the title is referring to in which case they're like 'wtf?' but i doubt that considering our main audience isn't even old enough to smoke

Great work, I enjoyed it. Though I heard of the more prestigious tournaments like the Smogon Tour and Smogon Official, I never knew there was a World Cup of Pokemon, and the way it was written implies that its not something new. Can anyone tell me/direct me to a site with more information on it, like past winners, countries participating and stuff like that?

CAP Leader

Bravo to all contributors to The Smog #1! As maiden voyages go, I would say it was a smashing success. I think there are many improvements that can be made, but the premiere issue was much better than I expected -- and I expected it to be good! Great work by everyone involved.

Regarding the suggestions/criticism that most Smog content could easily just be site articles -- yes, they COULD be. But delivering content in that manner is not very exciting, innovative, or eventful. By issuing content on a periodic basis, bundled up in a "magazine issue" -- it builds anticipation and makes the release of the content a major event. THAT'S why The Smog is such a wonderful vehicle for the entire community. Yes, people could simply write articles and put them up on the site -- ho hum... The Smog is much more interesting than that. It also focuses the creation of the content. We could simply add a sticky to C&C and ask the general populace to "Please write some articles for the site" -- ho hum... By appointing a magazine staff and organizing around a publishing schedule, it make the entire effort a notable project.

If the information contained in The Smog has lasting relevance, we could perhaps add some key Smog articles to the Articles section of the site, or perhaps just link the articles rather than copy them. Maybe even just list a single "Smog Article Index" in the Articles section.

However, the pokemon spotlight could have went a bit further than a meagre rehash of what the thing is used for and why it's good. For example, you could run through its history in the general metagame, such as its phases of use of that type of moveset and whatnot.

I liked this first issue a lot and any complaints have already been mentioned and can in one way or another be completely blamed on the fact that it is indeed the very first issue.

Expanded Q&A, more art and better layout are all things I'm sure will be improving over time. My personal opinion about the layout is that a very simple change that would make it much more readable and give it a more magazine-like feeling is to make the width of the paragraphs fixed and smaller, perhaps even introduce several columns. I don't want to have to resize the browser window itself in order to achieve a comfortable width when reading. A more interesting use of images from all the talented artists around would also improve the overall impression. But I know this wasn't the first priority this time around and I'm very confident that future issues will be much better.

Most importantly, I think that The Smog did a very good job in achieving its goal to make information more accessible. The actual content wasn't anything really new, but reading well written reports and summaries of important aspects of the metagame sure beats scrolling through endless forum threads in order to collect the very same information, regardless of what the readers skill level might be. This effort should truly be applauded and I hope it will expanded in future issues.

I hope these first few issues will help motivate many more people to write articles in order to make future issues more content filled, more frequent or maybe both!

Great work, I enjoyed it. Though I heard of the more prestigious tournaments like the Smogon Tour and Smogon Official, I never knew there was a World Cup of Pokemon, and the way it was written implies that its not something new. Can anyone tell me/direct me to a site with more information on it, like past winners, countries participating and stuff like that?

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here's last year's website! you can search the tournaments forum for the threads for the last couple of years :)

Wow! I'm seriously impressed! I found some parts such as the interview with chaos quite humerous too. And the alternate names for The Smog was very funny. I thought I was the only one who got Dialga and Palkia mixed up. :)

I love the idea of a pokemon webzine. There are a lot of ideas floating around in the forums that need to be distilled into solid articles; the ones on prediction and on lure theory were perfect examples of these sort of "implicit" ideas that a lot of new players would have a hard time grasping otherwise.

I would reiterate a few of the points Atlas made. More pictures, more CAP, and better formatting. I would love to see lots of pictures with text wrapped, as a few of the articles look a little intimidating as walls of text. Maybe even split up the different sections within articles into different pages. The analyses in the dex are perfect precedents of this stuff.

But terrific job, really. It's shaping up to be the "face" of smogon... what new people immediately see and absorb, and something you could link to a friend you want to introduce competitive pokemon to. :naughty:

I found it an extremely pleasant, occasionally funny, often surprising and always informative read. The Lead Analysis I found particularly enjoyable and well displayed and the featured RMT and Pokemon really helped get less seen strategies out there.

The ST5 coverage was great for me, as I missed the whole tournament, due to my ignorance and it was cool to read about face offs between battlers I have previously faced too.

Presentation was simple and effective, I preferred it immensely to the cryptic / intimidating format of the forums and there truly was something for everybody.

When the World Champions blow through, it would be to great to see some sort of personal report on the event and the major battles!

The Smog was an excellent read. All the articles were relevant and fun to read, although I got lost with the Math page. :P I think it is a really fun idea with so much potential. Congrats to all involved in the creative process.